The Cooperative Navy was stretched thin, splitting their efforts between Regrad's Compact fleet, the Bimmisaari-centered Eastern defenses, the Quelii Sector boarder, and the defense of Maridun deep within Reaver Space. All available assets from the rim-spanning organization had been brought to bear, but even now the Cooperative's combined military strength paled in comparison to the Reavers' sheer numbers.

And with all of the special task forces, changing priorities, coordinating with other Coalition military groups, and the growing volatility of relations with the Drackmarian Empire, structure had begun to break down. Army, navy, and defense forces had been merged, separated, reassigned, and repurposed so many times and in so many ways that the official fleet distribution had become nothing more than a dream of what the Cooperative armed forces might one day look like.

The men were wearing thin. They needed something stable, something permanent, something dependable. Something to lighten their burden, ever-vigilant, ever-able. They need a Guardian.

Today they will receive it.


Quelii Sector/Reaver Space Border, Cooperative Defense Zone 003


Beyond the forward viewport of the Venator-class Star Destroyere Redemption, the Core Group of the Drackmarian Outer Fleet held perfect formation at null velocity, one devil of a staring bout taking place between the hundreds of kilometers that separated the two formations.

“A war game on the border of Reaver Space? I don't like it.”

Admiral Jonathan Blakeley regarded the holographic image of the young captain with a sense of detachment that shocked him to silence. “I don't much like the idea of committing the fate of the men and women under my command to a software program, Berar, but I have been ordered to do so, and so I shall.”

The Halmad native simply nodded in understanding, then snapped off a proper salute. The admiral returned the gesture, adding “I'm counting on you,” and then cut the transmission. Blakeley turned and left the private room, stepping onto the bridge of the warship that had served for so long as his flagship. “Report,” He spoke in the demanding tone reserved for moments of true gravity.

“The Drackmarian formation has reported ready status, Sir. The Overseer awaits our consent to begin the countdown.” Silence hung for a long moment as the crew paused in anticipation of an order that did not come. “Sir?”

“Signal General Sarris,” He said finally, and the speed of the comms officer's compliance contrasting sharply with his obvious confusion.

The larger-than-life reptilian image resolved directly in front of the Admiral; he could tell that the alien was ready for battle. “Admiral,” He spoke neutrally, inclining his head ever so slightly.

“General,” Blakeley responded with a carefully measured tone.

“Let us settle this.”

“Indeed.” The image vanished, and Blakeley recalled what the Overseer had told him: “This is a test of Guardian's capacity, Admiral, not yours”. Blakeley knew better.

“Signal ready status and begin startup,” He ordered, setting his jaw to resist the old habit of chewing gum in the midst of such stressful command moments.

The crew set to carrying out his orders without hesitation, despite the fact that they all knew the startup procedure was supposed to be confirmed by the Overseer before being initiated.




The Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ship Guardian watched intently nearby. Cradling the Core Ship Smarts, it served as observation platform for the host of Cooperative military and political officials who were present to gauge Guardian's combat viability. Smarts detected the simultaneous transmissions of the Guardian synchronization signals and the message from Admiral Blakeley reporting ready. It was not an unexpected breach of protocol.

The Overseer transmitted the thirty second countdown, and then responded to the Admiral's misdeed by blanketed the combat zone a jamming field. On the bridge of the Venator-class Star Destroyer Redemption, Smarts' course of action had doubtlessly been anticipated.




“All channels?”

“Wargame administrative channels are still open,” The comm officer answered.

The Overseer can still call us and tell us when we've lost. “Guardian startup status?”

A still-unfamiliar face turned to answer, someone from engineering promoted to serve in the new Guardian crew station. “Guardian has switched to secondary communications systems, Sir. It is continuing with fleetwide synchronization and combat capacity assessment via line-of-sight means.”

“How long?” Blakeley asked, eyes fixed on the forward viewscreen.

The new face turned to the countdown timer: fourteen seconds. “This is a fleet-wide initial linkup, sir. It's meant to be conducted with full comm systems and in non-combat situations.” Blakeley turned an icy stare on the young officer, whose eyes widened in fear before he finally turned away and shook his head nervously. “I don't know, sir. We didn't cover this in training.”

The admiral looked to his tactical display, checking the fleet's status and drawing a split-second decision. “Switch to type-two hierarchy and implement an encircling maneuver.”

“Sir, Guardian suggests―”

“Damnit, go!” The admiral yelled, the first splashes of simulated turbolaser fire now setting the shields aglow.

The young man's hands set deftly to work, and Admiral Blakeley returned his attention to his tactical display, glad that the range at which the battle began meant the red glow on his forward shields wasn't even doing much simulated damage. “Sir, type-two hierarchy is in effect, fleet subgroups are initiating localized synchronization only. Guardian has implemented fleet maneuver Aurek-twelve, Dom-eleven-six, Besh-Nem-seven―”

What the hell? “Ensign! I don't need you to read me the file number of every maneuver initiated by my own order.” Blakeley kept his voice even, but there was no mistaking the disdain he so thinly veiled.

“Yes, sir.”

“What did we get out?” He asked, still unfamiliar with the Guardian readouts on his display.

“The Drackmarian tactical file was distributed before the formation breakup, Sir.” As command ship of the fleet, Redemption's Guardian had been downloaded with all available data on Drackmarian vessels and combat strategies before the battle began. Even with comms jammed, the fleet's starting formation and relative proximity allowed for line-of-sight transmission of those files in the brief time before combat commenced. Now, with the fleet breaking into groups and moving out along vastly different vectors, the information Guardian could glean from those files was all that held this fleet together.

Without further commands issued through the vastly reduced communications network of the fleet, Guardian would extrapolate a course of action based off of stored data and real-time information, and carry this battle to its eventual conclusion.

Of course, Admiral Blakeley had no intention of sitting on his hands and letting some data-checker program replace him . . .

Claymore-class Battleship Thunderbolt

As commander of the Guardian Fast Attack Group One, Captain Berar held the weight of well over a hundred thousand living souls on his shoulder. While they were in no real danger at the moment, they would be soon enough. Berar had no pathological fear of technology, machines, or artificial intelligences, but like Admiral Blakeley, he didn't like the idea of handing his fate over to them without so much as a whimper of protest.

“Sir, we're taking a beating, here,” The tactical officer said through a grimace, not liking the readings on his screens.

Berar nodded, but answered: “This is where we've been ordered to go, this is where we'll stay.”

“Sir, this is a Claymore-class Battleship,” The tactician protested. “The only thing it's not made for is standing still.”

“Sir, I'm getting some pretty serious protests from Guardian,” The lieutenant in charge of the Guardian station reported. He was a new face on the bridge, his whole team promoted from mainframe maintenance when the Guardian refit was completed. “It seems to think that the rest of the fleet's going about this all wrong.”

Yeah, tell me about it. They were losing; that much was obvious. Drackmarians liked to use their larger ships as floating shields, protecting their smaller missile-laden vessels which would then fire mass-barrages in arcs around their friendly destroyers. The simplest counter to this was to rapidly surround the enemy, attack them from multiple angles, and the slow speed of these Drackmarian vessels made that an easy task for the Second Wave-heavy Cooperative fleet that was field testing Guardian against them.

But Guardian was not taking that course of action. It was going to get them all killed.




“Ensign? Ensign? Guardian station!”

“Ensign Trueno, Sir.”

Right,” Blakeley said, glancing from the data on his screen to the young face staring back at him. “I'm sending this to you. Tell me what the hell it says.”

“Yes sir,” He answered sharply, followed by a muted, “Holy hell . . .”

“It's that bad, is it?”

“Give me a minute, sir. I'll try to make sense of this.”

“Hurry up, ensign. We're dying out there.” An alarm rang out, simulated depressurization, somewhere near the nose of the ship. “Looks like we'll be dying in here, soon, too.” Blakeley felt like the whole ship was collapsing in around him, like these next few minutes might really be the end. All he could do was sit and watch the numbers fall further and further in his enemy's favor, watch good men pretend to die while a heartless machine continued to dash their broken bodies against the indomitable warships of the Drackmarian Navy.

But he had orders, orders to let Guardian run its course. And a good soldier didn't disobey orders.

“Uhh, Sir, I'm sending something to you now.”

“It better not be in codespeak, boy, or I'll shoot you myself.”

“Just look at it,” Was the young man's only reply.

Admiral Blakeley was not a computer technician or a droid mechanic. He was not versed in the intricacies of the Guardian base code. But he knew how to read sensor data. “Ensign Trueno,” He said with only a little difficulty, “Can you get a message out to the fleet.”

The young man nodded confidently. “Emergency protocols can handle it; just keep it short.”

Blakeley took a deep breath, deciding today was a bad day to decide to break a habit, his teeth grinding furiously together in absence of a piece of gum. He could feel his career ending here. “Tell them: 'Guardian compromised; disengage combat protocols; initiate Firrerro Whip'.”

The inevitable ruckus ensued behind the Admiral. Blakeley turned to see the observer from Cooperative High Command in the midst of a temper tantrum, the old admiral's mind finally deciphering what the screaming little man was saying. “Engouh! I have stood by and allowed your disregard for protocol for too long! Enough, I say! This is a test of Guardian, and I will not allow you―”

The man fell silent as a gloved hand closed over his mouth from behind. The Cooperative security guard grabbed him around the waist and carried him bodily from the bridge, too busy to notice the approving nod from the Admiral, who promptly returned his attention to the main viewscreen. Jonathan Blakeley had a battle to win.




Captain Berar read the text message one more time. “You're absolutely sure?”

“Absolutely,” The Guardian technician answered. Twenty seconds earlier, Thunderbolt had taken turbolaser fire from a very unexpected source: the Cooperative Guardian Fleet flag ship, Redemption. It was one of the emergency communications protocols embedded in every Guardian. Ordinarily, Redemption would have been able to use a complex blink code system to signal vital information, but the full code table had not been distributed before combat began due to the communications jamming.

“Can you make our Guardian understand?” Bearar asked.

“Of course,” The other man replied. “But . . . shouldn't I disengage it, sir?”

Berar smiled and shook his head. “Haven't you heard? This whole thing is a test of Guardian. We can't go turning it off; that would be irresponsible. We have a duty to see this thing through,” He continued, though the sarcasm was not lost on anyone present.

“Sir?” The technician pressed.

Berar looked over his shoulder, where the on-ship observer should have been, making sure he played by the rules. But of course, Berar had disregarded protocol long ago; he had already broken the rules. He had already gotten rid of his observer. Berar snapped back to his consoles, pulling up tactical data and studying the situation himself. Redemption had just ceased its friendly fire, having signaled each of the fleet's attack groups in turn. “Half of them aren't responding,” Berar muttered, scrolling through other data. They were proceeding with Guardian's battle plan, ignoring the Admiral's orders. It was to be expected. They knew the order went against the Admiral's directives from High Command.

“Sir?”

“What does our Guardian suggest?” Berar looked up when he wasn't immediately answered. “What does our Guardian suggest, given our friendly warships are operating under a compromised system? What is Thunderbolt Guardian's proposed course of action?” Berar was getting angry, and no one knew if it was because of the technician's hesitation or the fact that half the fleet had just mutinied over a war game.

The man set to work, mumbling into a headset, typing out commands, scrolling through data. “well!?” The Captain demanded, realizing that the Firrerro Whip formation would never be achieved, as too many warships were not responding to the order.

“Uhh . . .”

The captain pulled up the data on his own screen, a moment of stunned silence before he chuckled to himself. Berar looked up to the technician, recalling the man's former duties: “Can you write up a patch to make this happen in-simulation?”

The other man smiled broadly, looking to the empty space where the High Command observer should have been. “Yes sir.” And his hands flew into action.

“Make sure it will fit through the administrative channel,” Berar added.

The man laughed aloud, but his hands didn't stop moving. “Yes sir.”




The Firrerro Whip relied heavily on two things: speed, and coordination. Speed was inherent in Second Wave designs. Coordination was easy to come by with Guardian, even in its dismal state. Even without code tables, a universal blink code was stored in every Guardian. Without the near-limitless variation allowed by the full code table, it would be nothing for the enemy to decipher and read the code after only a few seconds of use, but it would nonetheless be enough for a Firrerro Whip.

The basic premise was to send warships in a line at the enemy formation, zigzagging in random fashion to avoid fire as they went, concentrating fire on a select target for a brief moment before flying away, curving around, and coming back to strike a new target or hit the old one again. Depending on the number of ships involved and the space between them, the length of the Whip might be such that the whole formation curves around for three or four points of contact with the enemy simultaneously.

The problems inherent in executing the Firrerro Whip are many and varied. Against the slow Drackmarian warships, after so much mindless grinding of warship against warship, it might have just had a chance. As it was, nearly half of the fleet remained unresponsive to the new orders, and most of those which signaled their compliance were not part of the Second Wave groups, the only vessels capable of executing the maneuver.

On the bridge of his flag ship, Admiral Jonathan Blakeley was nearly ready to concede defeat. This had been a failure both of Guardian and of his command. I should have seen the source of all this so much earlier. It would all be over soon.




“Shields are out!” The tactical officer shouted as another set of warning alarms rang out.

“One more pass,” Berar said calmly, sitting comfortably in his captain's chair.

“She won't hold together through one more pass!” The pilot said, her fear feeding off of the tactician's frantic reports. “Captain, we're done for!”

Berar just chuckled. His ship and the members of his attack group had attempted to comply with the Admiral's orders, despite the futility of their actions. There weren't enough of them to take or deal enough damage to make it worthwhile. Every pass brought them through the heavy guns of the Drackmarian Destroyers and that damned-massive Cruiser, and every pass got them only a handful of the lighter missile frigates. It was appalling.

It was the perfect cover.

“We're coming in now, sir.” The Guardian technician said. The Drackmarian Cruiser swelling on the sensor screen made that abundantly clear.

“Transmit it now,” Berar said, standing to his feet. “Helm, set a collision course for the Drackmarian Cruiser Iron Fist, offset by point-three-five degrees, Guardian Orientation Port, at five kilometers from impact.”

“Aye, captain,” She answered, finally catching on.

As the arc of the half-assed Firrerro Whip brought them closest to the enemy command ship, Thunderbolt broke formation, hurtling toward the Drackmarian Cruiser which was just now receiving the supplemental software through the administrative channel. In perhaps three seconds the enemy commander would be informed that it was a mechanism for expressing intentional collisions within the wargame scenario. It would be beautiful.

A new alarm sounded. Berar ignored it, though he recognized it. “Sir,” The navigator spoke up. “Sir. Sir! That's a real collision alarm. There's something in our way!”

“Would they be in our way without the wargame course correction?” Berar asked.

“Uhh, no, sir, but―”

“Then comms, contact them over the administrative channel and advise them to move.”

“Sir, we could actually die here!” The navigator spoke again.

“Time to impact,” He asked, unconcerned.

“Umm, I think―”

“Five seconds, sir,” The Guardian technician responded. At this tremendous velocity, even the flaming wreckage of the Claymore Battleship Thunderbolt would reduce the enemy command ship to debris. And flying into the very heart of the formation, Thunderbolt would doubtlessly be little more than wreckage by the time it reached its destination.

And into this moment of double-edged victory, the blue-white avatar of the Overseer intruded. “Combat simulation discontinued. Pull away, captain.” All around them toy guns fell silent, missile-simulating flares burned out, and the open comm lines filled with the shouts of one Jonathan Blakeley, ordering all but one of his Second Wave attack group commanders to report to their respective brigs.






The first thing Jonathan noted was the seating arrangement. On the one side he sat, along with the five group commanders which had theoretically been under his command for this exercise. On the other side sat the hulking Drackmarian general, Sarris; beside him stood the modified B2 Super Blattle Droid Gamma. So it was us against them, after all.

“Let us begin―” Gamma said.

“You violated the terms of combat!” Sarris raged, standing to his feet and pointing a clawed finger at Blakeley.

“You cheated,” The admiral responded calmly, at which all of his subordinates except Captain Berar sneered at him doubtfully. Admiral Blakeley, however, was looking to Gamma, not Sarris.

“I simply passed on what the Drackmarians gave me.” The majority of the data used by Guardian to formulate a strategy against the Drackmarian fleet was derived from the Drackmarians' own records of the Battle of Watchtower. The Drackmarians, however, had altered much of the critical data; Blakeley knew this, because as supreme commander of the Cooperative armed forces, he had been given extensive briefings on the capabilities and strategies of Drackmarian fleets and ground forces. Once he actually looked at the decoded data, it was obvious that someone had changed it substantially.

“You flagged the Drackmarian tactical data at the highest priority,” Blakeley countered the Overseer's puppet, “making it more valid than first-hand, live-action combat data.” This was not some sort of oversight. The idea of being able to make records on enemy combat strategies and ship statistics “more valid” to Guardian than data it was gaining in-combat was meant as a mechanism to guard against deception. If an enemy force began acting contrary to known combat strategies, perhaps even to their own detriment, a Cooperative commander could order Guardian to evaluate the enemy based primarily on stored data, allowing it to plot possible traps the enemy might be setting, and act accordingly. Used in the reverse fashion, however, it was a sound way to have Guardian thrash itself against the enemy until nothing of its own force remained.

“You attempted to ram my command ship!” Sarris continued, undeterred. “A dishonorable act that we will not permit! An action beyond the rules of this engagement!”

“Sirs,” Captain Berar spoke up, standing to his feet. “I acted only under the advisement of
Thunderbold's Guardian, well within the rules and spirit of this wargame.”

“You lie!” Sarris accused, barring his sharp fangs in challenge.

“I do not lie, Sir,” Berar answered calmly, unfazed by the alien's rage. “My duty does not allow it.”

Blakeley spoke up, his Core accent contrasting sharply with the grunting alien and the flat-sounding Berar. “I ordered the captain to run his ship and squadron under first-contact situations. He did not accept or implement the tactical data distributed at the onset of the engagement.”

“You had orders―” Gamma began.

“I had orders to test Guardian to the fullest extent possible,” Blakeley finished for him. “It would have been irresponsible for me to commit the sum of my forces―blindly―to a single course of action. Regardless: the day was won by Guardian, as the test was meant to show.”

The fury was building in Sarris now, Jonathan could see it seeping from his very scales. Whatever plans the alien from the Unknown had spun, they had been totally unraveled.

Slamming his mailed fists on the table, the serpentine creature jumped to his feet, a feral hiss issuing from his breath mask. “No Drackmarian will ever serve a machine! Any machine.” And with a flash of pure rage, Sarris glanced at the droid beside him and then wheeled about, storming from the room.

“I demand that you return my prisoners to their respective brigs,” Blakeley said, carrying on as though the Drackmarian had never been here and any issues regarding Guardian had been resolved.

One of the men countered: “Admiral, you were acting in contradiction to the Overseer's standing―”

“I am supreme commander of these armed forces!” Blakeley shouted, staring down the man who dared challenge him.

“The Chief Executive of the United Cooper―”

“This is my command. This is my duty; this is my right. In combat I am father, mother, god, and Chief Executive! If you can't handle that, then get out of my navy! If you can't handle that,” He continued, turning to the lone droid, “then fire me.” His voice had dropped to a more appropriate level, the Admiral's insistence on protocol preventing him from yelling at the Overseer, even in his angered state.

“It was a simulation!” The man thundered on, ignoring or oblivious to the shift in focus which had just occurred. “To test the viability of Guardian.”

“Might I suggest that we have learned today only what Guardian cannot do,” Captain Berar said, directing his attention to the man now defending himself against threats only imagined. When neither the admiral or the Overseer seemed willing to break from their staring bout, Berar continued, addressing himself to the other squadron commanders. “It cannot deny what it has been commanded to accept. It cannot compel us to do what we know is wrong.

“It cannot weigh the resolve of those under its command,” The Overseer added, finally turning away from Admiral Blakeley. “Today you won a game by playing a game, Captian Berar. Today you suffered a small loss to cause a grave wound to your foe. But in real war, where death is final and irrevocable, could you do the same? Would you sacrifice yourself, your ship, and your crew to carry out the orders of Guardian? Will you be willing to die for a machine's command, when the real order is finally given, on the day when there are no take-backs?”

Captain Berar met the cold gaze of that war-droid with a resolve that burned away any shadow of doubt that might have clung to him before. “If I believe it to be right and true, then yes.”

“Machines do not give conditional 'yes'-es, Captain,” The Overseer responded.

“And that is why they fail,” Berar answered in his calm, neutral manner.

There was a long moment of silence in which the droid studied the captain, the captain sat in quiet acceptance, and Admiral Jonathan Blakeley weighed the dark prospects laid out before him.

“I believe we have all learned our lesson here today,” The battle droid finally said, taking in the room's inhabitants with a sweeping gaze.

“I believe you missed yours,” Blakeley answered, standing to his feet and straightening his uniform.

“That will be all,” The droid continued, then turned and left.

Admiral Blakeley exchanged unpleasant looks with his subordinates, noting the smug look on many of their faces. “Captain Berar will remain in command of Thunderbolt and her attached squadron. The remainder of you will be reassigned at the earliest convenience. Until that time, you are on leave.” Blakeley couldn't charge them with misconduct, but he damned-sure wasn't going into combat with them.

The old man from Halmad made his way from the room, Captain Berar falling into step beside him. “Sir?” He asked, the Admiral's frustration apparent.

“It is time, Captian, for the Overseer to decide if he is a politician, a warrior, or a gods-damned computer. And until he does, no Guardian, no new social order, and no flashy title can put this Cooperative together like it's meant to be. Freedom doesn't need an 'overseer'.”

“Careful, Admiral; that sounds like politics.”

Admiral Blakeley gave his subordinate a curt nod, acknowledging the young man's warning; to himself, however, he thought: If the Chief of State gets to play at warrior, then I get to play at philosopher.

The Overseer, the thinking machine that came from origin unknown and put this Cooperative together, had become a symbol to all its people, civilian, political, and even military. The infallible Overseer could not continue to be all things to all people. That was not the way of division of power; it was certainly not the way of democracy.